Mike Fortun Selected for Fellowship

He'll spend next year at Institute for Advanced Study

Megan Galbraith
Mike Fortun, assistant professor of science and technology studies, has been awarded a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS). He will spend next year in Princeton, N.J., exploring the ethical, legal, and social challenges presented by the Information Age.
The fellowship, which carries a stipend of $35,000, is administered through Princeton's School of Social Science with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the IAS.
Recently, Fortun has been at the forefront of the genomics debate in Iceland, where controversy swirls around deCODE Genetics, the company licensed to create the nation's healthcare database. He will use the year at the IAS to author a book, Promising Genomics, based on dozens of interviews he collected on recent trips to Iceland.
"The ethical and social implications of Mike's work are far-reaching in today's biotech climate," says Faye Duchin, Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. "He is an important voice in the genomics debate and I am proud that he was selected for such a prestigious fellowship."
The IAS was founded in 1930 as a community of postdoctoral scholars where intellectual inquiry could be carried out. Scholars such as Albert Einstein and Freeman Dyson are alumni. It provides libraries, offices, seminar and lecture rooms, subsidized restaurant and housing facilities, and some secretarial services.